It is now a universally accepted rule of physics that heat is required to transform a liquid state to vapor. The amount of such heat is known as the heat of vaporization. The closest approach to the instant solar desalination system is an installation of the University of Arizona at Puerto Penasco, Sonora, Mexico, in which air is recirculated in a closed-loop system. Air passes over a solar-irradiated water surface, picks up water vapor which is conveyed to a condenser in which it is divested of water and returned to the continuous closed circuit. In accordance with this Puerto Penasco system, one gram of water is converted to vapor by one-eighth the heat of vaporization required in other known systems of this same general type.
It is also accepted physical dogma that air injected into a body of water in the form of bubbles picks up water from the body and the amount of water so entrained is directly proportional to the interface area of the bubbles and the water. It therefore follows that the smaller the bubbles, the greater the area of total interface.